Sport face mask

ABSTRACT

A sport face mask is primarily a hollow face mask with a curved surface, made by extrusion wire-shape tubing along a length and width of the face mask, which can be worn on a user&#39;s face in association with a helmet or an elliptic pad. At least a part of the wire-shape tubing in the face mask is provided with a cross section in an elliptic or flat shape, and a long side of its cross section is perpendicular to the curved surface formed upon extrusion and assembling into the face mask. According to the aforementioned structure, in using the present invention, compressive and collision strengths of the face mask can be increased, a block to line of sight can be reduced, and a weight of the face mask product can be decreased.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

(a) Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a sport face mask, and more particularly to a hollow (or solid face) mask with a curved surface, which is extruded to be oval or flat shape, the purpose is used to enhance an intensity to have high impact effect and prevent an athlete's face from being subject to a collision by a ball or other alien object, and also is provided with a good line of sight and field of vision, in mean time, the unit weight of wire cage will be much more lighter weight than traditional solid wire cage, it has been significantly decrease on weight for a player, we can maintain the high impact, wider vision and also decrease the unit weight.

(b) Description of the Prior Art

For a conventional round shape face mask composed with wire-shape steel material, which is made by extrusion (such as a face mask for a hockey, a baseball/softball, lacrosse and any. game needs wire cage for protection), its wire-shape tubing is a round solid wire, steel material having a circular cross section. However, if compressive strength and collision strength of that face mask needs to be increased, it cannot be achieved without enlarging a diameter of the wire or replacing with a better material, as far as the round-wire steel material is concerned.

Accordingly, when the wire diameter is enlarged to enhance the strengths, a weight of the face mask will be naturally increased to add a burden to a user. And a line of sight will become inferior due to the enlarged wire diameter, thereby being disadvantageous to use for an athlete. On the other hand, a better construction is used to enhance the strengths. Furthermore, the increased compressive strength will be very limited such that it cannot be proportional to the increased cost, for a same wire diameter. Accordingly, the aforementioned conventional technique is required to be improved.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The primary object of present invention is to provide an improved structure of a sport face mask which can increase compressive strength and collision strength of the face mask without affecting a line of sight, and can even further improve its line of sight and field of vision, under a condition of same material, same weight, and same cross sectional area.

Accordingly, a sport face mask of the present invention comprises wire-shape steel, wherein a cross section of at least a part of the wire-shape tubing is in an elliptic or a flat shape, and its long side is outward perpendicular to a curved surface formed upon extrusion and assembling the wire-shape steel into the face mask.

According to the aforementioned structure, as a conventional round-wire steel material is squeezed into a wire of flat cross section, and its long side of cross section is outward perpendicular to a curved surface formed in extrusion and assembling into the face mask, the compressive strength and the collision strength of the face mask can be increased, under a condition of same material, same weight, and same cross sectional area. In addition, when a user wears on the face mask and looks out from an interior, he or she will see a narrower wire diameter, thereby achieving an effect of reducing a block to the line of sight.

To enable a further understanding of the said objectives and the technological methods of the invention herein, the brief description of the drawings below is followed by the detailed description of the preferred embodiments.

In addition to above version, the present invention have the hollow tubing as well to decrease the weight, but still maintain the high impact and wider vision property.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a cross sectional view of a wire-shape tubing of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows a perspective view of another embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, a sport face mask of the present invention is primarily a hollow face mask 10 with a curved surface, woven with wire-shape tubing 11 along a length and width of the face mask 10, which can be worn on a user's face in association with a helmet or an elliptic pad 20. A cross section of wire-shape tubing 11 of face mask 10 is in an elliptic or flat shape, and its long side is outward perpendicular to the curved surface formed upon extrusion and assembling into the face mask 10. Referring to FIG. 1, it shows an embodiment applied to a hockey game. In this embodiment, a local wire-shape tubing 11 is in an elliptic or flat shape, whereas an outer frame or other positions which is subjected to a weaker force can be made by a common wire in a circular or other shape. In addition, the shape can also be dependent on sports, such as that a face mask 10, as shown in FIG. 3, is a full or a half mask which can be applied to a baseball game.

According to the aforementioned structure, as the wire-shape tubing 11 is made by squeezing a conventional round-wire steel material to form a shape of flat cross section, and a long side of its cross section is outward perpendicular to the curved surface formed in extrusion into the hollow face mask 10 with the curved surface, it can be directly sustained with an external impact. In addition, a formula for calculating a bending strength of material is that Bending moment (Mb)=Working stress (σzul)×Section modulus (Wb), where, σzul is a constant value for a same material, Wb is equal to πd³/32 for a circular material, and bh³/6 for a rectangular material. It can be shown from the equation that the strength of wire-shape tubing 11 is proportional to a third power to a height (h) in its direction of force, and for a same cross sectional area, the section modulus of a rectangular material is much larger than that of a circular material; therefore, the flat wire-shape tubing 11 of present invention is able to effectively and greatly increase the compressive strength and collision strength of the face mask 10. Correspondingly, an object of reducing a weight can be also achieved. In addition, when a user wears on the face mask 10 and looks out from an interior of the face mask 10, he or she can see the flat wire-shape tubing 11 with a smaller width (b), thereby reducing a block to the line of sight, and even improving the line of sight and field of vision.

Accordingly, the sport face mask of present invention is indeed a simple structure and is provided with the practical effects of increasing its compressive strength and reducing the block to line of sight.

It is of course to be understood that the embodiments described herein is merely illustrative of the principles of the invention and that a wide variety of modifications thereto may be effected by persons skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the following claims. 

1. A sport face mask being a hollow face mask with a curved surface, made by extrusion wire-shape tubing along a length and width of the face mask, which can be worn on a user's face in association with a helmet or an elliptic pad, wherein at least a part of the wire-shape tubing of face mask is provided with an elliptic or flat cross section, and a long side of the cross section is perpendicular to the curved surface formed upon extrusion and assembling the wire-shape tubing into the face mask. 